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Aung San Suu Kyi's release is welcome, but by itself is no measure of change in Burma

For 24 hours, the world, and Burma’s people, were kept waiting. Every hour the media went through a tantalising “Will she? Won’t she?” cycle of analysis, commentary and speculation. Rumour abounded. Thousands of her supporters, young and old, gathered around the offices of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), and near her home in University Avenue. Then finally, the moment we had all been awaiting – the world’s most famous political prisoner stepped out from her home. Unsurpisingly, even she could not silence the waiting crowd.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s release is as visually momentous as Nelson Mandela’s walk out of prison in South Africa twenty years ago. There is, however, one key difference. Mandela was released because F.W. de Klerk knew that apartheid was unsustainable. He worked in partnership with Mandela to transition South Africa to freedom, and Mandela’s release was part of that process.

In Burma, there is no F.W. de Klerk, and no Mikhail Gorbachev. If the Generals have their way, there will be no change. Aung San Suu Kyi has been freed not because Senior General Than Shwe, Burma’s dictator, has compassion, but as a public relations fig leaf to divert attention from last weekend’s sham elections, brutal offensives against Burma’s ethnic groups and the regime’s crimes against humanity.

So while Aung San Suu Kyi’s release is certainly welcome, and will have a profound impact on her people regardless of the regime’s intentions, we must be careful not to see it as a sign of change. When she was last released in 2002, Aung San Suu Kyi herself made this point: “My release should not be looked at as a major breakthrough for democracy. For all people in Burma to enjoy basic freedom – that would be the major breakthrough.”

Today's elections in Burma are nothing but a sham, a charade, a masquerade, a fraud, a fake and a lie

 
Today is polling day in Burma, the first elections in the country in twenty years. Yet instead of being a momentous occasion, these polls are at best meaningless and perhaps actually dangerous. Far from being a triumph of democracy and freedom, today is a body blow to the cause of liberty. Burma’s elections today are nothing but a sham, a charade, a masquerade, a fraud, a fake and a lie. The only change that will come from today is a change of clothing for the regime, from military uniform to civilian suits, and perhaps one or two new faces.

Just over a week ago, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he was “really expecting that this election will be a fair one and a credible one and an inclusive one,” and that it was “not too late” for this to happen. What world is he living in?

Don't make Burma a partisan issue, David Miliband

Just before David Miliband's speech to the Labour Party conference, a very brave and inspiring young Burmese democracy campaigner whose father is in prison delivered an incredible speech. Wai Hnin Pwint Thon spoke passionately about her father, Ko Mya Aye, serving a 65 year prison term for pro-democracy activities. One of over 2,100 political prisoners in Burma, Wai Hnin's father is in poor health and is denied the medical treatment he desperately needs.

Wai Hnin spoke about the Burmese regime's sham elections, and said that they were designed to keep the regime in power. The only change there would be, she said, would be a change of clothing from military uniforms to civilian suits. She also spoke of the regime's continuing attacks on ethnic civilians in eastern Burma. She received a well-deserved standing ovation, led by Ed Miliband.

The Labour Party's decision to invite Wai Hnin to speak from the main platform at the conference at which they elected their new leader was a very welcome one, and is evidence that Burma is now an issue that is high on the agenda of all three major political parties. At last week's Liberal Democrat conference, the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats awarded Burma's detained Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi honorary membership. And the Conservative Party has heard from Zoya Phan, International Co-ordinator at the Burma Campaign UK, from their main stage in 2006 and 2007. Burma is not a party-political issue in the UK - it is one which unites politicians of all parties, and rightly so.

Which is why David Miliband's remarks were so distasteful, inappropriate, profoundly ill-judged and just plain wrong. He accused the Conservatives of saying "not very much" on Burma. Excuse me?

In opposition, it was the Conservatives who for some years led the way in pushing Burma, at least until 2007. In addition to Zoya Phan's speeches to the Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron met another young activist from Burma, Charm Tong, in early 2006. William Hague shared a platform with Charm Tong, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission chose Burma as the subject for its very first hearing in 2006 and held a second Burma hearing at the beginning of this year, and when the Labour government dragged its feet over bringing Burma to the UN Security Council agenda, it was William Hague who pushed them to take action.

Several senior Conservative politicians have travelled to Burma and its borders, including the now Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell (who made an excellent youtube film about it) and the current Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. Stephen Crabb is a passionate activist for Burma and chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Burma. Nigel Evans slept in a tent outside Parliament alongside Burmese exiles in protest at the regime's suppression of democracy. So don't tell me Conservatives have nothing to say on Burma, David Miliband.

The Conservatives supported the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity before the Labour government, pushed for stronger targeted sanctions and called for increased humanitarian aid, including cross-border assistance to the ethnic peoples. When Zoya Phan's excellent book Little Daughter was published, William Hague spoke at the launch despite having just flown in from New York that day. I have been told that he read the entire book on the plane - surely a sign of commitment? When a debate on Burma took place in 2007 in the aftermath of the regime's brutal suppression of peaceful protests in Burma, William Hague insisted on opening for the Opposition, even though David Miliband was on paternity leave and his then junior minister Meg Munn was deputed to speak for the government.

When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister he did, to his credit, display a strong personal interest in Burma, and he gave the issue pro-active personal leadership. We are all grateful to him for that. Other Labour politicians have an outstanding record of commitment on Burma, particularly Glenys Kinnock. But for David Miliband to hijack the issue of Burma and try to score party political points is sour and opportunistic. He only acted on Burma as Foreign Secretary because Gordon Brown and William Hague were pushing him to do so.

Since becoming Prime Minister, David Cameron has given a clear commitment to continue Gordon Brown's work on Burma. Pledging support, not just friendship to the Burmese democracy movement, the Prime Minister has written an open letter to Aung San Suu Kyi promising to do "everything we can" to help them. When Burma was raised at Prime Minister's Questions, David Cameron said:

When I was in India I raised the issue of Burma with the Indian Government, because I think it is important that we talk to the neighbouring states of those countries and make sure that they are campaigning in the same way. ... we should be absolutely clear that the situation in Burma is an affront to humanity. Aung San Suu Kyi's continued detention is an outrage. She has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest, and her example is deeply inspiring. All of us like to think that we give up something for democracy and politics; we do not. Compared with those people, we do nothing. They are an inspiration right across the world, and we should stand with them.

In contrast to David Miliband, I do not want to make this a partisan issue. I have worked closely with MPs of all parties on human rights issues and will go on doing so. I simply want to point out to Mr Miliband that his remarks were factually completely wrong and politically completely inappropriate. They showed a man who would use anything for personal political gain, even the suffering of the people of Burma and even having lost the leadership. Was he simply trying to outshine his younger brother who beat him in the leadership? If that is his mentality, he did not deserve to win the Labour leadership and we are all better off without him. Oh, and by the way, Wai Hnin is speaking at the Conservative Party conference next week, at a meeting organised by the Conservative Women's Organisation, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International. Would you like to come, David?

A little summer reading

It's not exactly light reading, and certainly not Jeffrey Archer, but over the summer I have read four particular books that I would recommend highly to anyone interested in engaging with some of the major issues of our time. All four books, each in their own unique way, relate to the theme of freedom - freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. I don't necessarily agree with absolutely everything in them, but overall they are challenging, inspiring and profoundly thought-provoking.

My four recommendations are:

1. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas
2. The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle Over God, Truth and Power, by Melanie Phillips
3. Nomad: A Personal Journey Through The Clash of Civilisations, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
4. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr, edited by Clayborne Carson

A word or two about each of them.

Bonhoeffer

Metaxas' biography of Bonhoeffer is absolutely gripping - extraordinarily researched and engagingly written, it presents Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a major challenge to the contemporary Church and society. Hitler, Metaxas writes, was disdainful of Christians, believing that they preached "meekness and flabbiness". There's a warning in that for today's Church. Bonhoeffer stood in stark contradiction to this perception, and is a role model for Christians today.

A rare combination of passionate belief and open-minded breadth, Bonhoeffer rejected both the woolliness of ultra-liberals and the harsh dogmatism of ultra-conservative evangelicals. And he stood firmly for freedom, ultimately surrendering his life for the cause. As Metaxas notes, he was horrified at the Church's appeasement of the Nazis. "Action was the only thing these bullies feared, but neither the ecumenical movement nor the Confessing Church seemed prepared to act," Metexas writes. "They preferred to keep up a meaningless and endless dialogue and played into their enemies hands". Again, lessons for today, not just for the Church but for foreign policy makers dealing with dictators.

Ultimately, Bonhoeffer followed in a long line of Christians who saw human rights and political freedom as integral to their faith. Along with William Wilberforce, and to be followed by Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu, Bonhoeffer followed in Moses' tradition of saying to those in power: "Let my people go". The church in Bonhoeffer's view, Metaxas says, "existed for 'others' ... to reach out beyond itself, to speak out for the voiceless, to defend the weak and fatherless." This is a book that should be read by every Christian, but not only by Christians. Anyone with an interest in that period of history, its relevance to today and a concern for freedom would find Bohoeffer's story, as told by Metaxas, inspiring.

The World Turned Upside Down

Melanie Phillips' new book is typically bracing. The world needs the likes of Melanie Phillips, to sound the trumpet, to rattle the cage, to wake us up. She provides a very well-researched, well-substantiated, acerbicly argued rejection of ultra-political correctness, looking at the major issues of militant secularism, radical Islamism, environmental extremism, anti-Semitism, Israel and Iraq. "The postreligious Western world is struggling to adjust to a profound loss of moral and philosophical moorings," she writes. Summing up at least parts of our society quite accurately, she concludes that:

"A consequence of this radical discombobulation is widespread moral, emotional and intellectual chaos, resulting in shattered and lonely lives, emotional incontinence and gullibility to fraud and charlatranry."

It is packed with little-known facts, such as that today there are at least 100,000 practicing Pagans in the UK, a Pagan Police Association has been established and Hertfordshire police force allows officers eight days' pagan holidays a year. In 2007, Phillips notes, "450 scientists from more than two dozen countries, several of them current and former participants in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), voiced significant objections to the claims made by the IPCC and Al Gore". By last year, the number had risen to 700 scientists. Yet, she points out, the climate change dogma has taken root so much that a Stalinist intolerance of debate and dissent results in respected scientists being demonised and dismissed as mentally ill if they so much as question the new orthodoxy.

I don't necessarily agree with Phillips on everything. She is right to champion the values of intellectual and academic rigour and debate, and thereby defend freedom of speech and reject the tendency to repel, remove and character assassinate dissident voices. Yet she undermines her case by failing to clearly and uncategorically acknowledge that even if the science on climate change is debatable, there is still a very good case for wise stewardship of the environment. We should protect our countryside and natural beauty, and therefore minimise pollution, reduce the destruction of trees, avoid dropping litter, use our finite natural resources more sparingly, recycle and renew our environment. If she had emphasised that more strongly, her well-founded argument for freedom of thought and speech would be enhanced.

In the battle of the burka, choose freedom

Few people have been more passionately opposed to radical Islamism on these pages than I have been. I have written a whole catalogue of posts over the years, quoting the likes of Melanie Phillips, Michael Nazir-Ali, Douglas Murray, Ed Husain and others. I have done so for one very simple reason: because I am passionate about freedom, and I regard radical Islamism as one of the greatest threats to liberal democracy of our time. The other, I might add, is militant secularism.

I work for a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom. Yes, we are a Christian organisation and much of the work we do is on behalf of persecuted Christians. But we campaign for religious freedom for all, and I have personally spent many hours working with and for Rohingya Muslims in Burma and Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Some of my colleagues are very active on behalf of the Baha'is, Tibetans and Falun Gong. I think the fact that we are an explicitly Christian organisation championing, so proactively, religious freedom for all is something to be celebrated.

In my spare time, I serve as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party's Human Rights Commission. We have just completed an inquiry into international religious freedom, and will be launching a report soon.

In other words, freedom, liberal democracy, basic human rights, and particularly religious freedom, are the values which fill virtually every minute of every day for me. And those values are threatened by radical Islamism. Not, I repeat for those who still need the caveats even though they get repetitive, all Islam: simply a strand of Islam that is radical, militant and either preaches or practices hatred, violence and subjugation of women, gays, non-Muslims and other Muslims who disagree.

For those very reasons, I am strongly against banning the burka - or, for that matter, going in the Swiss direction of banning minarets. How can we possibly speak for persecuted Christians, Baha'is, Ahmadiyyas or, for that matter, atheists, in Muslim-majority countries, if we impose, through legislation, a blanket ban on the burka and impose strict controls on what people can and cannot wear? If we are to effectively champion the values that we hold dear and which radical Islamism opposes and seeks to defeat, we have to be consistent. Furthermore, if we are to empower voices of moderation within Islam, we do ourselves and them no good at all by imposing bans on dress and refusing to talk to veiled women. I was recently in Indonesia, where I developed partnerships with several amazing, courageous Muslim civil society groups who are at the forefront of counter-extremism and promoting religious pluralism and freedom in that country. How could they, who are risking their lives for our values from within Islam, trust us if we impose blanket bans on items of clothing?

Mending the Broken Society

I wrote this article, Now it's our turn to believe that we can change the world, in response to David Cameron's superb speech yesterday on Mending the Broken Society.  

We're all in this together - at home and abroad

Foreign policy doesn't usually win elections, but as I found when I stood in the City of Durham in the 2005 General Election, it is a "barometer" issue. As Oliver Letwin told me, it is a test of values and if people perceive your foreign policy values are wrong, they definitely won't vote for you, while if their perception of your foreign policy values is positive, it may help influence their attitude.

When I stood in 2005, I was a Cameroon before David Cameron became Leader, and a modern, compassionate Conservative before that phrase took root in the party. Throughout the campaign five years ago, I talked about social justice - at home and abroad - and although it did not win me the seat, it helped to change perceptions. When people found out that I am a human rights activist, when I spoke about my visits to the conflict zones of Burma, when I talked about my work with refugees and genuine asylum seekers, and when I held a public meeting to give two brave and inspiring individuals, one Israeli, the other Palestinian, an opportunity to put forward their vision of peace in the Middle East, it made a difference. Not a day went by in 2005 without at least one person coming up to me and saying either "I have never voted Conservative before, but because of what you are saying, for the first time in my life I am going to" (not many) or "I'd really like to vote for you because I like what you are saying, but I can't bring myself to vote Conservative" (many). Most greeted me with a look of astonishment, saying either "I can't believe you're a Conservative" or "I have never met a Conservative like you before."

Reading the new manifesto, Invitation to Join the Government of Britain, it is clear that five years on, the Conservative Party has many people like me. It has changed, radically. On domestic policy, that is especially clear, with a much more diverse range of candidates and many candidates who have a proven track-record of commitment to social justice. But there are many, like me, who enthuse about international human rights and tackling global poverty. Just look at Project Umubano. I am the norm, now, and no longer an exception.

A Brief History of Islamism

Jaw-dropping quote of the day: "At what point has Jihad equated to incitement to violence?" I am not sure if the person who wrote that, in response to my previous article Stop the preachers of hate, was being facetious, but if he wasn't, I am wondering what inter-galactic experience I have suddenly found myself in. Have I been accepted by Cape Canaveral and sent into orbit to another planet, unconsciously, or has he?

To him and other contributors, all I would say is read The Quilliam Foundation's report A Brief History of Islamism. It's only 16 pages, and I have just read it in half an hour. I would think that everyone who blogged responses to my previous post, even those whose remarks would win Nobel prizes for stupidity, could cope with 16 pages? But for those who would find such a task too onorous, here are a few extracts from the report.

A Brief History of Islamism provides an idiot's guide to the ideology of Islamism and a valuable refresher course and reminder for those who have already read around the subject. It describes the key players, recounting the background of Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood, the origins of  Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the story of Maulana Mawdudi and Jamaat-i-Islami, the influence of Sayyid Qutb,  all the way through to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and bin Laden.

Stop the preachers of hate

Once again, the alarm bell is ringing - yet still much of Britain sleeps. The news that the threat level has been raised to "severe" should not surprise us. And of course, it shows that while much of Britain sleeps, there are excellent people in our security services working night and day to protect us. They, at least, are awake to the threat. But even if policy makers are awake to the immediate threat of terrorism, large parts of society - including government, media and academia - have still not got to grips with the ideological underpinnings of these terrorist threats.

Audio tapes purport to carry warnings, by Osama bin Laden, of more attacks. Al-Qaeda has reportedly trained female suicide bombers, from "non-Arab" backgrounds, poised to launch attacks on western targets. A prominent Muslim businessman, Iqbal Wahhab, warns today that a new '7/7' is imminent. And what are we doing? We allow a hardline cleric, banned in the US, who believes Jews are "monkeys and pigs", to tour British university campuses.

It seems mind-bogglingly naive, not to mention stupid, to allow Yahya Ibrahim to speak at Birmingham University in March and the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff next month. He reportedly advocates conflict with the West, promotes Wahhabism and Salafi ideology, and has received funding to do so from the Government's anti-extremism Prevent strategy.

If Labour continue as ostriches over our broken society, their 1997 theme tune will have to be rewritten

David Cameron has pointed out the blindingly obvious, and in doing so appears to have sparked a controversy.

The Daily Telegraph's headline today, "The battle rages over 'broken Britain'", caught my eye, because I did not think Cameron's observations were controversial - they were correct, factual, indisputable. A society which has the highest divorce rates in Europe, the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, the highest abortion rates, binge drinking and anti-social behaviour not just in the cities but in every market town in the country, can surely be described, in Cameron's words, as heading into a "social recession"? How is it even disputable?

The debate should not be about whether or not we live in a broken society, but about what to do about it. But because far too many people, not only government ministers, are like ostriches with their heads in the sand, clinging to Cool Britannia and refusing to accept the truth that we have profound social problems, we have to have a debate about whether it is broken before we can fix it. It is like a family standing around a dining table. Two of the legs of the table have broken and the table is only just about upright but at a strange angle. Plates slide off it and it's in serious danger of collapse. Does the family stand around debating whether or not the table is broken, or do they get the table fixed?

For Ed Balls to say that David Cameron's "broken Britain" analysis shows he is "completely irresponsible" and "out of touch with the reality" is the most ironic quote of today. It is the government, and others who refuse to see the problem, who are irresponsible and out of touch. If they carry on with their heads in the sand in this way, then the theme tune of their 1997 election campaign will have to be rewritten - for things can only get worse.

Our Broken Society

Last night I met a woman whose face will continue to haunt me for a long time.

At 10pm in Victoria Street, after saying goodbye to a friend after dinner, I was on my way to pick up some milk from Sainsbury's before taking the train home. As I was about to cross the road to the supermarket, a clearly deeply distraught young woman on the other side of the road called out to me: "Can you please help me? Please help me?"

I paused, and waited as she ran towards me. Pointing to a horrific, huge black-eye, and shaking, she told me her boyfriend had beaten her up, she had gone to the police station but no one would help, and that I was the first person to even listen to her story. She said she needed to get a bus home to Middlesex. "I have to get away. I just have to get away," she said, deeply agitated and not very coherent. I assured her I would help, tried to calm her down, and tried to work out precisely what kind of help she needed. It became apparent she wanted money for a bus fare.

Preparing to give her a couple of pounds, I then asked if she knew what number her bus was. I was going to walk her to the bus stop. She then told me she needed to get a bus and a coach. I gave her £10, but she looked at me pleadingly and asked if I could help her with the full fare. She offered to give me her address, her name, her number, so she could repay me, but I said that wasn't necessary. "How much is the coach fare?" I asked. "£24.90," she told me. "To Middlesex?" I enquired, puzzled. "No, I live in Middlesex, but I need to get to Middlesborough," she said. I gave her £30. "Are you sure you don't want my contact details?," she asked. I assured her I didn't. "God bless you," she said. "You're the only person who has even bothered to listen to me."

As I walked back to Victoria station and travelled home, my stomach churned with anger. First, it crossed my mind that this could have been a set-up, an elaborate act to deceive. Middlesex, Middlesborough, the police not helping - none of it made sense. It's possible to create a black-eye with make-up and act distraught, agitated, traumatised. Had I given £30 to someone who would go out and buy heroin or crack cocaine? I kicked myself. But then I felt anger that I should be so cynical, have so much distrust. Her story could have been true, and I believed it at the time. Thirdly, I felt anger at our broken society, for either way, something is wrong. If her story was true, then it is an illustration of social breakdown. It disgusts me that we could live in a society where a woman could be beaten so badly, and be so clearly terrified and traumatised. It disgusts me to think that the police didn't help her and that I was the first person who even listened to her story. Yet if it was a scam, then it disgusts me that someone - and perhaps a group of people - could be so deceptive and devious as to play on the compassion of others. If untrue, it is disturbing to think that I might have helped a drug addict fuel her habit, and that trust has been broken in the process.

All around me the signs of our broken society are obvious. In 2005, when I was Parliamentary Candidate in the City of Durham, I went out on the streets with the police and saw the ugly reality of binge-drinking up-close. I put out a campaign newspaper headlined "Fight North Road binge drinking says Ben Rogers". A few days later, I received an envelope in the post, with a piece of paper. On it were the words of my newspaper cut out and moved around. It read: "Fight Ben Rogers says North Road binge drinker." I framed it as an amusing memento of the campaign, but the underlying message is disturbing. Five years on, things have got worse.

A few months ago I went to visit Karen refugees from Burma who have been resettled in Sheffield. They have fled the brutality of the Burma Army. Many of them have been used for forced labour, tortured, raped and seen their villages burned down. They fled their country, to the restrictions and harship of a refugee camp on the Thailand-Burma border, before then being uprooted again and finding themselves in cold, wet Sheffield. I met one woman in her flat in a run-down council estate. On the stairway as I walked to her flat, I passed surly young English kinds, in hoodies, smoking. It was intimidating. As I sat in her sitting room, she told me how she had been shot by the Burma Army. But she also told me how just a few weeks before, her flat in this estate in Sheffield had been broken into. Again, a sickening feeling developed in my stomach. After all she had been through, now she faces the terror of inner-city gangs. Couldn't Britain offer her better? With remarkable grace, she smiled. "At least I am free," she said. Even that supreme value, freedom, however is being compromised and threatened by a combination of ultra-political correctness and radical Islamism.

These are small snapshots of our broken society. Others would have many more stories to tell - of knife crime, teenage pregnancies, debt, family breakdown, gang murders. Anyone who denies that we have a broken society is divorced from reality. Some would grumble that it is too negative to say society is broken. But it depends on what you mean. By "broken", don't hear the word "irreparable". The situation can be redeemed, our society can be rebuilt, life can be restored. But it will take courage, conviction and hard work. It will take a new approach, combining government, the voluntary sector, families, schools, the police, business and religious organisations. It will require government to listen to groups such as the Centre for Social Justice, whose excellent work is shaping the heart of a future Conservative government. As David Cameron says, we are all in this together. If we rediscover that value, of being in it together, perhaps trust can be rebuilt and it will become clearer to identify who is genuinely in need and who is simply part of a scam.

The Gathering Storm of Radical Islamism

Efforts by groups such as The Centre for Social Cohesion, Policy Exchange and the Quilliam Foundation, and by individuals such as Michael Gove and Baroness Cox, to draw our attention to the threat of rising radical Islamism reminds me of Winston Churchill's warnings about Nazi Germany, as documented in The Gathering Storm. Churchill was largely ignored, dismissed, at best regarded as talking about a very marginal issue, and often derided as a war-monger. Yet his warnings were proven right, and in the end we had to confront Hitler.

Anjem Choudary's appearance on Newsnight earlier this week (watch 17.45 minutes in to the link) is just the latest Churchillian warning of the sheer fascism of radical Islamism, yet still we are at best only half-awake. The decision to ban Islam4Uk, an offshoot of al-Muhajiroun, is a sign that the Home Secretary is starting to take these groups seriously - but very belatedly.

The latest example of Britain's sleepiness on this issue is the news that a senior figure in Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a lecturer at the London School of Economics (LSE) who reportedly groomed a suicide bomber. According to The Times today, in addition to preaching regularly at the LSE's Islamic Society, Reza Pankhurst holds secret meetings with a group known as "Brothers' Circle". How is it that Britain's universities are giving not only religious preaching slots but also academic teaching slots to known radicals?

On Newsnight, the clash between Anjem Choudary and Quilliam's Maajid Nawaz was extraordinary - and worth watching. Choudary accused Nawaz of being an apostate, and his refusal to answer the question as to whether, in his proposed 'Caliphate', Nawaz would be executed was chilling. Furthermore, despite his eagerness to utilise the benefits of freedom and democracy to spread his message of hate, he said that "democracy and freedom is no good for the British". Well thanks, Anjem, but I'd rather have our broken democracy, as full of faults as it is, than a society in which adulterers are flogged, gays are executed, women are stoned for not being veiled, churches are burned, so-called apostates are killed and non-Muslims are forced to convert or be treated as 'dhimmis' or second-class citizens. I'd rather a society in which we can speak freely and practice our faith freely, within the rule of law and as long as it doesn't threaten others. So too would many Muslims.

This month's Standpoint magazine

I have to admit, I am becoming a fan of the new magazine Standpoint. I have no vested interest in promoting it, other than that it contains articles which I believe convey important messages for our society and our policy makers today.

The current issue is particularly worth reading, and for that reason I want to draw ConservativeHome readers' attention to it. In particular, to two articles, which while seemingly cover totally different topics, are actually two sides of the same coin.

First, a fascinating article by Geoffrey Robertson QC, prosecutor of numerous war criminals around the world and author of a superb book Crimes against Humanity. Robertson comes out strongly in support of the Conservatives' proposal for a British Bill of Rights. He says:

David Cameron's call for a British Bill of Rights deserves enthusiastic support

He cites our heritage as one reason for supporting the proposal:

..... as a document that will teach our children to take pride in their heritage and history. Take the prohibition on torture: how many know that it was abominated by the common law and abolished along with Star Chamber, while it flourished for centuries afterwards in Europe, solemnly ordered by French and Italian judges? How many can trace freedom of speech to John Milton and "freeborn John" Lilburne, and later to Erskine's defence of the brave booksellers who sold the work of Tom Paine? Or the development of fair trial to the forensic genius of William Garrow, or how the right to hold governments legally accountable for abuses of power began with John Wilkes and Chief Justice Pratt? These rights should be recognised, in our schools as in our courts, as living parts of our own culture, rather than remain lost in the uninspiring Euro-prose of a "European" Convention.

Labour has become a farce

Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt's initiative is yet another example why this Labour government has become a farce. If Labour MPs cannot decide whether or not they have confidence in their party's leader, why on earth do they think the British people can be expected to have confidence in their leadership.

Questions about Gordon Brown's leadership are not new. Doubts were expressed even before he became Prime Minister. Tom Bower's excellent biography provided fascinating insights into the character of Gordon Brown. Charles Clarke has been a repeated critic, and Frank Field has raised concerns about Gordon Brown, describing him as showing "tempers of an indescribable nature". If Labour MPs wanted to do something about their leader, they should have done so earlier.

To contemplate changing leaders, or even propose debating the question, within less than four months of a General Election is pure self-indulgence. Even if they did get rid of Gordon Brown, whatever process they used, a new leader - a new unelected Prime Minister - would have little more than three months to make his or her mark, and that's only if MPs' wield the knife within days from now.  More importantly, however, for Labour to think that this will wash with the electorate is the epitome of arrogance. To change Prime Minister once without the British people having a say is bad enough; to dump a Prime Minister just weeks before the British people have a chance to pass judgment on him is insane.

All this is further evidence of a shambolic, shabby, sordid, tawdry, dysfunctional, arrogant, inward-looking, exhausted government that is long past its sell-by-date, and further reason why the General Election cannot come soon enough. Let the British people have their verdict on Gordon Brown, not Labour MPs clinging to their seats in desperation. And let's have a government that gets on which the business of government, addressing the major challenges of our time - the economy, education, the NHS, climate change, international poverty, radical Islamism, security - and a government that engages in a conversation with the British people - instead of talking to itself and indulging in petty internal squabbles.

The war on terror is a battle of ideas in which we must stay alert and consistent

The war on terror, and the wider battle against radical Islamism, is never going to be easy or straight-forward. Just when we think we may have achieved some progress, either in thwarting terrorist plots or in deradicalising extremists, a new plot pops up, a new bomb goes off or another catastrophic plan becomes a very near-miss. In addition, there are dilemmas, tough decisions, difficult choices. Balancing security and civil liberties, counter-terrorism and travel congestion, principles and practicalities are just some of the challenges that await whoever is in government.

These themes are highlighted in particularly compelling form in two media reports yesterday, both of which are well worth studying.

First, The Sunday Times' excellent piece on the Christmas Day Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's journey to radicalism and then terrorism, highlights the new front opening up in the war on terror: Yemen. It describes how this Middle Eastern nation is becoming the new al-Qaeda hub or, as one official put it, "the Pakistan in the heart of the Arab world".

Second, Michael Portillo's superb documentary, Closing Guantanamo, which can be watched online here any time during the next seven days, is well worth paying attention to. Portillo also highlights Yemen, and travels there, but his major focus is on the dilemma facing policy makers: how to balance security and civil liberties.

There are three lessons I believe we can take from both the focus on Yemen and the issue of Guantanamo Bay.

First, we must always, always stay alert. The fact that London has not had a terrorist attack since 7/7 should not make us think the threat has gone away. The Sunday Times is right when, in its editorial yesterday, it warns us not to ignore the wake-up calls we have received. We have been so focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan that we perhaps did not realise early enough what a centre Yemen was becoming.

Jack Straw owes the police an apology

Jack Straw has a nerve. His shocking critique of our brave police force, accusing them of being "too lazy" to fight crime, on the front page of today's Daily Telegraph, is a tawdry beginning to an election year. It reeks of cheap buck-passing for Labour's failure to tackle crime and social breakdown. His dismissive view that police officers are not over-worked, and that targets and form-filling are not to blame, but that instead the police "quite enjoy staying in the police station in the warm" is jaw-droppingly insulting to the men and women who try to protect us.

Undoubtedly the police are not perfect. I am sure there are individual police officers who are lazy, just as there are individual police officers who may be guilty of racism, heavy-handedness, misconduct or error. The tragic killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 is proof enough that the police are fallible. But to accuse the police force, in general, of being lazy and preferring to stay in the warm rather than be out on the streets is insulting, not only to the police but to our own intelligence. Jack Straw needs to re-examine the culture of bureaucracy his government has built up, in which the manager, the management consultant, the spin doctor and the petty bureaucrat creating targets have replaced the frontline policeman, doctor, teacher and soldier in ministers' priority lists. Jack Straw should apologise. 

In 2010, let's finally wake up

We begin a new year with headlines telling us that other countries think Britain is a menace to the world. While we might be inclined to say, with typical English restraint, "hang on a sec, old chap, that's going a bit far", we might just pause, reflect, and realise that the statement is fairly accurate.

Umar Farouk Abdulmuttallab is just the latest in a series of Muslims radicalised in Britain, as Paul Goodman reminded us the other day. According to The Daily Telegraph, policy makers in the United States are concerned that "one of the biggest threats to US security came from Britain". They criticised the "ghettoisation" of British Muslims, in contrast with the "assimilation" of Muslims in America. Writing in yesterday's Daily Telegraph, Usama Hasan noted that "students' Islamic societies on British campuses are dominated by fundamentalist ideas and overly politicised interpretations of Islam". 

The tragedy is, no one can say we haven't been told before. We have - repeatedly. Indeed, over the past few years, we have had numerous well-researched, well-documented warnings. If you didn't read Melanie Phillips' Londonistan, you could have read Michael Gove's Celsius 7/7, Caroline Cox and John Marks' The West, Islam and Islamism or Ed Husain's The Islamist. And if you didn't get round to reading them, you could have skimmed through numerous reports by think-tanks such as Policy Exchange, Civitas, The Centre for Social Cohesion (which has reported widely about radicalisation on university campuses and via the Internet, the availability of jihadi texts in British libraries, and the activities and beliefs of Hizb-ut-Tahrir) or The Quilliam Foundation (which has drawn attention to radicalisation in Britain's prisons). No one can say they were not warned.

And yet ... and yet ... it is over eight years since 9/11, almost five years since 7/7, and still people do not seem to get it. Still London ranks alongside Afghanistan and Pakistan as a hub for radical Islamist terrorists. 

I hope that 2010 will be different. I hope that we will wake up - before we get another unpleasant wake-up call. I hope that we will not only become alert and aware to the terrorist threat all around us, whether it is being plotted in Pakistan or London, Nigeria or Luton, Somalia or Bradford, Morocco, Milton Keynes, Egypt, Exeter, East Ham or Indonesia, but also that we will become better informed about the ideology underpinning the violence. As Paul Goodman wrote recently, Islamism - the political ideology, as distinct from Islam, the religion - needs to be treated in the same way as fascism and communism. We were alert to the dangers of Marxism during the Cold War, and we remain rightly appalled by fascism, whether expressed by Adolf Hitler or by Nick Griffin. We must treat those who preach hate in the name of Islam, and who turn students into potential bombers, with the same distaste. But we must do our homework better, and prepare to counter their hate-filled ideology.

One last thought. In addition to knowing our enemies better, and their ideology, we should get to know ourselves and our country better. That means standing up for our values of freedom and tolerance against the twin threats of bigotry and political correctness. And it means rediscovering our spiritual heritage. Jonathan Aitken makes some thought-provoking observations in a recent article in The Daily Mail, and I would encourage people to read it as we reflect on a New Year. And as we clear away the remains of our Christmas celebrations, we would do well to take heed of Ed Husain's message in The Sun. Read the entire article, but note especially these words as we enter 2010:

when British people get jittery and shy away from Christmas and want to use meaningless language such as "Winterval", we compromise what is best about Britain - a multi-faith country and culture informed by a Christian ethos and history.

I am proud Britain never became a godless, communist land. We fought two world wars to protect the history, culture and people, not to see what makes it British eroded because of spineless politicians too scared to say "Christmas" in public.

Millions of Muslims and others feel welcome here because of our similar beliefs in Jesus, God, and the afterlife. Even if people do not share those religious beliefs, they can still be part of the Christmas spirit.

Christmas is about remembering God, family and our fellow citizens. This is something for us to celebrate, not hide away.

Let us begin the New Year with the Christmas spirit.

Keeping Burma on the agenda

I know I am relentless in bringing Burma to your attention, but I believe I owe it to the people of Burma to continue to do all I can to raise awareness about their plight. I am therefore taking the liberty of posting here my latest article, "Where Impunity Reigns", published in The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune. I would also like to draw your attention to a recent debate I spoke in at Intelligence Squared. The motion was "It's Time to Lift Sanctions against Burma". At the beginning, before the speeches, a slight majority of the audience voted in favour of the motion. By the end, my two colleagues and I speaking against motion had defeated it by a majority of 37 votes.  

Book Review - Zoya Phan's 'Little Daughter'

Many readers will remember Zoya Phan, a Karen refugee from Burma, whose moving address at the 2006 Conservative Party Conference brought delegates to their feet with tears in their eyes. The following year, she was invited back to speak at the Party Conference.

If you are looking for something to read this Christmas break, and want a break from British domestic politics before the General Election campaign, I would recommend Zoya's book, Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West. Launched earlier this year in the House of Commons at an event hosted by Stephen Crabb MP and addressed by the Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, Zoya's book is a moving and poignant personal story of struggle which cannot fail to challenge and inspire.

While much of the early part of the book provides an innocent and charming account of life growing up in the jungles of eastern Burma, there are inevitably many grim moments in the book. Zoya recounts how at the age of six she and her brother and sister were playing by the river, when "our happy games suddenly turned very dark". As they splashed about innocently in the water, suddenly they were confronted with a bloated, floating corpse. "All of a sudden we were screaming in horror," she recalls. The man had been killed by the Burma Army and dumped in the river, left to decompose.

As she grew older, Zoya encountered the horrors of war more regularly. The bodies of wounded or dead Karen resistance soldiers were often brought to Manerplaw, the Karen headquarters where she grew up. "I remember looking into one of those hammocks," she writes. "I saw a face bloodied, swollen and pockmarked with shrapnel, the gentle brown eyes all but gummed shut with congealed blood. But worst of all was the young man's hands that ended in stumps wrapped in bloody rags."

Zoya's father, Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan, was a senior leader in the Karen resistance, and ended up as General Secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU). When she grew up he was often away for weeks at a time, involved in political activities and, on one occasion, kidnapped and imprisoned. "My father was kept in the pitch black of the dungeon as his captors took away his fellow KNU leaders and executed them," she describes. "At one point they had put a gun to his head and acted as if they were going to kill him."

The most dramatic moment in Zoya's childhood came when Manerplaw, where she had grown up, was attacked by the regime's troops. Her description is charmingly down-to-earth. "The first time the aircraft came to drop their bombs on us I was in the loo," she recalls. Her family were forced to flee into the jungle, and walk for days without adequate food, shelter or medicine to reach the safety of the Thai border. Describing her emotions at the time, she is refreshingly honest. "I found myself unable to cry. I was crying inside, but I felt as if I should be strong. So I kept the trauma bottled up inside me," she writes. In the jungle, the family were constantly on the run. Her mother knew that they must always keen their bags packed - "and be ready to move at a moment's notice".

That was not to be Zoya's only experience of running from bullets. Two years later, they were attacked again:

"People were running in every direction shouting and screaming. Animals were bellowing or screaming in panic. Children were screaming and crying, the crackle of the gunfire rose above the uproar, and then there would come the crack-BOOM of the mortar bombs landing, as if every glass window in the world had been shattered at once .... The dust got so bad it was almost like night. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, my legs were aching with running, my lungs burning, my whole body shaking with fear. I just knew I had to keep going or I'd be killed."

While this was going on, Zoya began to ask questions:

 "Why did the United Nations and the international community allow this to happen? And where especially were the British? We had been their allies. We had fought and died beside them in the Second World War. Why had they abandoned us? I dreamed that they would come and rescue us. But they never did."

Zoya then spent several years in the refugee camps across the border in Thailand. There she learned some English and gained some basic schooling - enough to win a scholarship to study in Bangkok. Part of her studies was business administration - but adjusting to this, and to city life, from where she had come from was a challenge:

“It was so alien to me. I didn’t understand many of the most basic concepts. I had no idea about the practices of international business. As to the relative benefits of Kimberly Clark’s logo versus that of Toyota or Tesco – I was completely lost. What was a logo? What was a superstore? Who were Tesco, Toyota and the rest?”

From this point on, her life took an extraordinary turn. She did an internship at Telecomasia, and was offered the chance of a corporate career. However, several factors convinced her to take a different course. First, her mother was seriously ill, and she returned to the border to visit her. She then decided to make a visit inside Karen State, to try to help her people and particularly to "get into those areas that the media and human rights workers were seldom able to visit.". She went with her father's blessing, and his hammock and mosquito net. On that visit, she met people who were terrified of imminent attack, suffering from cholera, chronic diarrhoea and malaria, and who had no opportunities for health care or education at all. “They were so poor and destitute that even the clothes they stood up in were in shred,” she recalls. “They had nothing; nothing. No pots and pans; no blankets; previous little to eat.” It was this situation, she explains, that began to turn her away from “a soft, moneyed and easy future” and back to her people and their struggle. Some of those she met turned to her and said: "Please do something about the suffering here. Go and tell the world."

Her mother died in 2004, and Zoya accepted a place at the University of East Anglia to study for a Master’s in Development and Politics. Ten months after starting her course, she attended a demonstration in London, where someone handed her what she describes as "a funnel-shaped device" which was "very heavy". She was told: "It's a megaphone. Press that button and speak into this end and everyone will be able to hear you - even the people inside the embassy." She did, and her activist's life was born. “All my life I had been a victim,” she writes, “but today I had felt what it was like to fight back.” Within a few weeks she was doing interviews on the BBC, leading protests outside the Burmese Embassy and 10 Downing Street, and addressing audiences around the country. She has shared a platform with William Hague several times, spoken to Gordon Brown personally on the phone, met the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street and shaken hands with David Cameron.

 

On 14 February, 2008 Zoya's family - which had already endured so much - was struck by further tragedy. Her father was assassinated by agents of the regime. I had been with him three days previously, and had sat with him on the very veranda where he was shot dead. Zoya had been aware of the plots, and is herself on a hit-list now, but no amount of awareness could have prepared her for the shock. "My father was killed because the Burmese regime feared him," Zoya writes.

 

I had just landed in Kuala Lumpur, on my way to visit Burmese refugees there, when I received news of Padoh Mahn Sha's assassination. I had known him well, always visited him when I went to the Thailand-Burma border, and his children, including Zoya, are friends of mine.  Eerily, it was almost exactly a year later that, landing in Kuala Lumpur again, I finished reading Zoya's book. It draws to an end with the account of her father's death - and with typical defiant courage:

"They killed my father because they wanted to kill what he stood for. I was determined not to let that happen ... And whilst they may have killed my father, they could never kill my father's dream. That the Karen, and all the people of Burma, will be free."

And it closes with this challenge, which is one for us all to consider this Christmas:

 

"Maybe you will feel sorry for me after what I have been through in my life. Don't. I am one of the lucky ones. I am lucky I am still alive. I am lucky I haven't been raped. I am lucky that I am not still in a refugee camp that is like a prison camp, with no work, no freedom .... And I am lucky to be able to work to help my people. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, I want you to feel angry, and I want you to do something about it."

 

One of the ways you can do something about it is to support organisations working on Burma, either The Phan Foundation 

 which Zoya and her brothers and sister established in their parents' memory, or The Burma Campaign UK,  where Zoya works as International Co-ordinator, or my organisation, Christian Solidarity Worldwide.Have a look also at the Change for Burma campaign.  

 

Burma's crimes against humanity

Burma's crimes against humanity are highlighted in this article in the Daily Telegraph today, and in a debate in Westminster Hall introduced by Nigel Evans MP this morning. 

Radical Islamism's spread: a review of two major new reports

Two significant reports that I have just read in the past few days have made me realise that still people do not get it about the threat of radical Islamism.

The Centre for Social Cohesion's new report Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy, by Houriya Ahmed and Hannah Stuart, and the Quilliam Foundation's report by James Brandon, Unlocking Al-Qaeda: Islamist Extremism in British Prisons, both made jaw-dropping reading. Jaw-dropping not because of what they revealed about the presence of radical Islamists in our midst, but because of what they revealed about the ignorance and incompetence, indeed unwitting complicity, of our authorities.

Take Quilliam's report first. With a foreword by the Conservatives' Shadow Security Minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, the report details a terrifying phenomenon: that in Britain's jails radical Islamists imprisoned for preaching hate and plotting terror are actively using the prisons as a recruiting ground for fresh converts to extremism: and with success. Twelve per cent of the prison population, or 10,000 inmates, are Muslim - vulnerable to radicalisation.

Quilliam's report documents, shockingly, the availability of jihadist literature in prison libraries. Well HELLO, isn't that a bit dumb? During the trial of Mohammad al-Figari, a convert to Islam jailed for attending terrorist training camps organised by Abu Hamza, the prosecution produced a book found in al-Figari's possession, entitled How Can I Train Myself for Jihad?  The book had a stamp from Wandsworth prison's library. Furthermore, al-Figari received extremist literature sent by followers of Abu Hamza, while in jail. What is the Prison Service doing stocking jihadi literature in its libraries, and allowing jihadi literature to be received by mail by inmates?

Promoting diversity, protecting tradition

There are two aspects of our country and its values which I believe we should defend vigorously, because both are under threat. They may at first appear contradictory, but they are not. One reinforces the other. The first is diversity, the second is tradition.

I thrive on diversity. I would find life much less fulfilling if every day was the same, if I saw the same people, the same places, and did the same things. I love meeting people of different backgrounds, cultures, countries and religions; I love visited places which each have their own rich, but different, history; and I have a wide range of tastes in food, music, film and literature.

Our country is enriched by the broad and diverse range of people who are its citizens. Indeed, the very essence of the United Kingdom is diverse: the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish. Add to them the people who have become part of the United Kingdom over the past century or two, from varying cultures and religions, and it makes for an even more beautiful nation. We have a proud tradition of welcoming the visitor and providing a place of sanctuary for the refugee, and we must unflinchingly maintain that tradition.

A Politics of Wilberforce on Remembrance Day

As we mark Remembrance Sunday once again, let us not simply remember those soldiers who gave their lives in war, important though that is, especially to their loved ones. Let us also remember what they gave their lives for - and let us strive to make our politics worthy of their sacrifice.

I have just re-watched the film Amazing Grace, for the umpteenth time, and once again am challenged, inspired, motivated and broken by it. I have devoted my life over the past decade or more to the struggle for human rights in various countries - Burma, East Timor, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, The Maldives, China and North Korea are just some. I have been enormously privileged to see witness some extraordinary victories of freedom over oppression, in East Timor and the Maldives in particular, and have had the opportunity to make a small contribution to those struggles. Yet with Burma, Pakistan, and North Korea in particular there is so, so much more to do. Watching Amazing Grace, and at the same time remembering the sacrifice of our troops in wars against tyranny and for freedom - the First and Second World Wars, the Falklands, the first Gulf War, the second Iraq war and Afghanistan - I realise once again how little I have done, how much time and money I have squandered on trivialities, and how much others have given for the cause of liberty. I wept as I reflected on the state of my own heart and priorities as I rewatched Amazing Grace, and I resolved to redouble my efforts.

Faith and politics

Once again David Cameron has shown his refreshing human-ness and thoughtfulness, this time in yesterday's Evening Standard. Those who dismiss him as simply a 'pr' man are wrong. He speaks with a simple honesty unusual for a party political leader and prospective Prime Minister. Despite his wealthy background, he has a remarkable ability to connect with people and to come across as a down-to-earth guy we can all relate to. The contrast with the current Prime Minister is as stark as chalk and cheese.

The whole interview is fascinating, but I found David Cameron's remarks about faith especially interesting and encouraging. Despite our increasingly secular society, with the rise of militant secular fundamentalism as big a concern as militant religious fundamentalism, people do want to know what makes our political leaders tick. We want to know not just their policies, but their values, their character and their worldview. If faith is a component of that worldview, however large or small, I think we'd be interested in knowing about it. Not in an on-the-sleeve emotional tele-evangelist way, but in a simple, honest, understated, thoughtful but direct way. Equally, if someone has no faith, let them be honest and direct about it. And if they have faith but mixed with doubt, which if we are honest is the position of most believers, let's hear about that.

I have often thought that the difference between British and American politics is that, in Alistair Campbell's infamous words, we "don't do God" and the Americans "do God" too much. So while in Britain, Tony Blair looked disgusted when asked by Jeremy Paxman whether he and George W Bush prayed together, in America, one-time Democrat presidential candidate Howard Dean felt he had to talk about his faith more than he had previously done and was caught out when asked what his favourite book in the New Testament was. Dean said the Book of Job. God is politicised and, by some people, hijacked in America - while in Britain God is generally abandoned and derided. In America, if you are a politician without faith or with a faith that was previously understated, hesitant, quiet, you need to conjure one up quickly for public consumption if you are to have any chance of success. In Britain, it had seemed, you need to keep it quiet, as if it were something you did in the privacy of your bedroom and found rather embarrassing to admit. Both extremes are very unhealthy.

Inside the North Korean Gulag

It is not every day that you meet a person who has had all their fingernails pulled out, their bottom teeth bashed out, and has been hung with their arms tied behind their back for up to 12 hours, their feet suspended above the ground and their chest bursting from the strain. Nor is it often that we meet someone who has witnessed people suffering such extreme starvation that they resorted to fighting over bits of corn in dogs' faeces. I have, however, spent the past two days taking two North Korean defectors around London. They had both been jailed in North Korea's infamous gulags - and, remarkably, survived to tell their story.

Both The Times and The Guardian have run pieces today about Guang il-Jung and Lee Sung Ae, after a visit to London organised by Christian Solidarity Worldwide in which they met senior officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister David Lidington MP and the Chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, Tony Baldry. They also addressed a meeting in Parliament hosted by Baroness Cox and the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea.

The courage these two individuals have shown in escaping, at huge risk, and telling their story is extraordinary. And the examples they gave of the North Korean regime's brutality are truly unbelievable. Lee Sung Ae said that among her fellow prisoners was a person who was jailed simply because he had rolled a home-made cigarette using a bit of used newspaper which happened to have a small photograph of the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il on it. She said food rations in the gulag were so bad that at least 30 people died every day, and the survivors resorted to opening the mouths of corpses to see if there was any unswallowed left-over food in them. When Guang il-Jung went into the gulag, he weighed 71 kilos. When he came out, he was 34 kilos. For the very sick, veterinaries, not medical doctors, were assigned to provide treatment. When asked how a vet could treat a human being, prisoners were told "you're not human beings, you're animals".